“The aim is to discover novel biological mechanisms responsible for psychiatric disorders,” he says. “Once such mechanisms are discovered, the ultimate vision (beyond this current research) is to develop drugs that would interfere with these mechanisms.”

The project will feature collaboration between Anastassiou’s computational laboratory and Karayiorgou’s genetic laboratory. If results with two genes are deemed promising, the group will test them using in vitro (in the genetic laboratory) neurobiological experiments.

“In turn,” he says, “these discoveries will be helpful for the development of highly needed diagnostic and therapeutic methods for these diseases.”